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THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 



SPEECH 



HON. THOMAS J. HENLEY, OF INDIANA, 

IN THE HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 26, 1848. 



In Committee of the Whole on the state of the 
Union, in reply to Mr. Tompkins of Mississippi, 
and Mr. Barrow of Tennessee. 
Mr. HENLEY said, that whilst he had no am- 
bition to figure as a debater upon that floor, and 
had no desire to mingle in the party discussions 
there, he claimed, nevertheless, to have been a 
close observer of what had been passing around 
him. He had not taken notes of the speech of the 
gentleman [Mr. Palfrey] who had just taken his 
seat; but he could not help being forcibly impressed 
with the contrast in the reception of an abolition 
speech now, and at the time when he first had the 
honor of a seat in that House. He had then heard 
slight allusions to the question of abolition, but 
never without its producing excitement on all sides 
of the House, even with the Whig party from the 
South. But this speech — the most forcible and 
able of the kind he had ever heard — had received 
the marked atteiUion, had elicited the smiles and 
the apparent approbation of the Whigs from the 
slaveholding States. He believed the abolitionists 
onlj'-asktobe heard by the South,and they promise 
to convince them of the practicability of abolition 
doctrines. They had been heard on this occasion, 
and the South — the Whig portion of it — had seem- 
ed, by their smiles and other evidences of appro- 
bation, to have given in their adhesion to the 
doctrines of the able gentleman from Massachu- 
setts. This was certainly something gained, and 
more than he h^d expected, in so short a time. 
He was certain of one thin?, however, and he 
would tell it for the benefit of^all concerned: From 
what he had seen since he had been there, it would 
be a long time before a Democrat would receive 
the countenance and smiles of his party, either 
North or South, in making such a tn-ade against 
the institutions of the South, and, he would add, 
against the Constitution itself, and the very Union 
which gives us so many and such inestimable j 
blessings, and which has been sealed by the blood 
of the noble sires of degenerate sons, who now 
as.sail its sacred compromises. The secret of all 
this (said Mr. H.) is already oin; the gentleman 
from Massachusetts has told it himself. The 
Whig party is in a minority without the abolition- 
• ists. Their majority is five, and there are six 
abolition members. Tell it not in Gath — publish 
it not in the streets of the southern cities! In the 
South, they would hang an abolitionist on the near- 
est tree; in Congress they are beholden to him for 
the very power they hold in this House, and 'are 
taunted to their teeth that they cannot move a peg 
Printed at the Congressional Globe Office, 



without him. It is a fact— the South may look to 
it as she chooses — the Whig party is now under 
the control of the abolitionists in this House. 

Mr. FI. had no remark to make upon the sub- 
ject of slavery in the States. He had no desire to 
discuss a question before a body which had no 
power to control it. He was well known at home 
to be opposed to that institution, as believing it to 
be an evil, as well to the slave-owner as to the 
slave. He believed it to be a national as well as 
an individual evil; a social as well as apolitical 
evil. But it had been sanctioned by our revolu- 
tionary forefathers in solemn national compact. 
It belonged to the compromises of the Constitution. 
It was protected by a sacred mantle, placed there 
by better men, he feared, than lived at the present 
day. He would not disturb it. Palsied be the 
hand that would. 

Mr. H. would next advert to the singular and 
extraordinary speech of the gentleman from Mis- 
sissippi, [Mr. Tompkins,] which the gentleman 
had himself confessed was prepared for a very dif- 
ferent subject, but which he seemed to think would 
suit for any subject, and he had therefore " rung 
it in" on this. And, indeed, he (Mr. H:) was not 
prepared to say that it would not suit one subject 
as well as another; but he had not been able to 
discover yet what particular subject it did suit, 
and that seemed the difficulty with the honorable 
gentleman himself. But having brought his grist 
to the mill, he seemed determined to grind it out 
while he had the steam up, whether the question 
then before the House bore any relation to it or not. 
He would not play the clown for the amusement of 
the House, nor would he play the part of a political 
mountebank, here or elsewhere, for any purpose. 
He could not refrain from referring to the allusions 
of the member from Mississippi to the gentleman 
from Alabama, [Mr. Houston,] proverbially known 
on this floor as respectful and courteous to gentle- 
men on all sides of the House, who had prepared 
and cited some authority in support of the refusal 
of the President to give to the Whigs of this House 
certain information in regard to the instructions of 
Mr. Slidell, as minister to Mexico, which he (the 
President) believed would be prejudicial to the 
public interest. This the member from Missis- 
sippi was pleased to characterize, in his classical 
style, the "dog-eared" authority furnished by the 
President himself. It was in vain that the gentle- 
man from Alabama explained, and assured the 
gentleman that the authority had been looked up 
by himself alone, and wholly without the knowl- 



2 ^ \ 

edge of the President; still the member from Mis- 1 there was, in his judgment, as little prospect of 
sissippi persisted in the charge, and repeated it — i realizing their expectations, as there was of those 



"the dog-eared authority of the President" — a half- 
dozen times, after the disavowal of it by the gen- 
tleman from Alabama. Now, Mr. H. gave it as 
his opinion, nay, he would say, that there was not 
any more of the dog about the gentleman's speech 
than the ears; and he made the assertion, because 
he found the gentleman had laid himself liable to 
the opposite inference. 

There hves in the South (continued Mr. H.) a 
plain, honest, straightforward, independent plant- 
er, who was a member of this House during the 
last and the preceding Congresses. In the last 
canvass he was a candidate for reelection, and, as 



self-same asses growing fat when they snuffed the 
breezes from the east. 

The gentleman had quoted Shakspeare,and had 
endeavored to imitate some of his characters. Mr. 
H. remembered one of those characters, v/ho re- 
minded him very much of the member from Mis- 
sissippi, of whom it said, "Gratiano speaks an in- 
finite deal of nothing, more than any man in all 
Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat 
in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere 
you find them, and when you have them, they are 
not worth the search." 

Mr. H. would next advert to some of the re- 



rumor has it, his competitor, who travelled with i marks of the gentleman from Tennessee, [Mr 



him, addressed the good people of the district 
somewhat in thiswise: "Gentlemen, I believe there 
is no great difference of opinion between Mr. 
Roberts and myself. I am in favor of the war; the 
bank is not in issue; to the tariff I am for giving 
a fair trial. The difference is, indeed, so little upon 
any national question, that you are left to decide 
this election pretty much with reference to our 
personal qualifications. I think, fellow-citizens, 
that, to sustain himself well and give character and 
weight to his position, your representative should 
possess the qualification of an orator. I consider 
this indispensably requisite for a member of Con- 
gress. We shall both address you to-day, and 
make a display of our ability in this respect. You 
will hear us, and I beg of you to decide upon our 
merits accordingly." Thus was the issue made, 
and the result was, the orator beat the sturdy 
planter. Well, the orator is here; he has pre- 



Barrow.] The gentleman said, as parties now 
stood, particularly in the Senate of the United 
States, they could not impeach the President for a 
violation of the Constitution in reference to the 
Mexican war; but if they had a majority of Whigs 
in the Senate, then they would bring forward ar- 
ticles of impeachment. What did he mean by 
this ? That a Democrat was incompetent to sit on 
a jury to try the President of the United Slates, if 
he had violated the Constitution ? That was ob- 
viously his meaning. He presumed the gentleman 
was a lawyer; would he challenge a juror because 
he was a Democrat, when the individual to be 
tried was also a Democrat? He would, on the 
ground which he had taken on this question ! 

Mr. H. had long suspected that the Federal 
party, for the sake of oflice and power, would, if 
they dared to do so, impeach the President, break 
him of his office, call home the army in disgrace, 



pared himself for a display, that he may gain a i and abandon even Texas to her fate. And now 



reputation here, and worthily acquit himself in the 
eyes of his admiring constituents at home, after the 
plan laid down in his electioneering campaign. 
The effort has been made; the maiden speech 
has been delivered; the House has heard it; the 
world will shortly have the benefit of it; and fond 
and confiding constituents will eagerly seek its 
perusal. Now, Mr. H. would not be disrespect- 
ful towards the gentleman; but he would say to 
him, humorously, as he seemed to be fond of fun, 
and had amused the House a good deal the other 
day, that his remarks had reminded him (Mr. H.) 
very much of the hollow sounds proceeding from 
an empty cider barrel, which might have been 
drained of its contents in the campaign of 18-10. 

Thegentleman talked of Executive prerogatives, 
and would appear before the committee as a sage 
expounder of the Constitution. Mr. H. had once 
heard a pun ; it was this: " An Irish potato was laid 
upon Vattel's Laws of Nations, and pronounced 
a common later upon the work;" so of the gentle- 
man's effort as a commentator on Executive pre 



the ears of the nation were saluted with the bold 
avowal that all this would be done, if they only 
had a majority in both Houses of Congress. For 
the sake of the honor and character of the nation, 
he hoped they would never have the power to in- 
flict such a wound upon her. The Whig — the 
Federal — party, it seemed, had prepared a gallows 
on which to hang the President of the United 
States as high as Haman. Let them beware, lest, 
like Haman, they be hung upon their own gal- 
lows. 

The gentleman from Tennessee said he would 
have voted for the act recognizitig the existence of 
the war, and making appropriations to carry it on, 
under "protest." And what was that protest? 
The gentleman would have been unwilling to vote 
for it with a preamble declaring " whereas war 
exists by the act of Mexico;" but not if it had 
said, " whereas, by the act of the President of the 
United Slates, an unconstitutional war exists: 
therefore resolved that men and money be appro- 
priated to prosecute it," he would have voted it. 



i-ogative and constitutional law — it had but little j The gentleman would not like to have voted for it 



more reference to the question in hand than a com- 
mon Irish potato laid upon the cover of a book 
would have to the contents within. We read, .said 
Mr. H., that once upon a time the "asses snuffed 
up the east wind." A clergyman in olden time 
asked his servant what he could infer from this 
passage of Scripture. After a little reflection, he re- 
plied that his inference would be, that it would be 
a long time before they would grow fat upon it. 
Now, he would say, in all due respect, that if the 
gentleman's constituents expected to grow fat them- 
selves, or feast the nation upon such exhibitions, 



when it declared the truth; he revolted at the idea 
of voting for the prosecution of an honorable war, 
forced upon us by Mexico; but he would have 
voted to prosecute a dishoHorable war, begun by 
the President of the United States ! That was his 
position. Let him make the best of it. 

It is in vain for gentlemen to say they voted for 
the war to rescue General Taylor from his perilous 
position. The forces ordered by General Gaines 
and the requisitions by Taylor himself were more 
than enough for this purpose. It is an idle pretext, 
and looks more like the efforts of a drowning man 



grasping at straws, than the reasoning of an honest 
and candid mind. If their purpose had only been 
relief to General Taylor, why vote fifty thousand 
men and ten millions of money, and order the Presi- 
dent at the same time to prosecute the war vigorous- 
ly? If the President had violated the Constitution, 
and ordered the army beyond our limits, what was 
the obvious duty of Congress ? Clearly to order it 
back, and repair the wrong. Suppose the Presi- 
dent should order our fleet to bombard the city of 
Liverpool, it would be a stronger case than this, 
to be sure, but precisely similar. Would that be 
war with Great Britain? Not at all, unless Con- 
gress agreed to recognize it as war. What would 
be the duty of Congress in that case? Any man 
can give the answer : order the navy home, and 
impeach the President, and inform the injured 
nation that the act was in derogation of Executive 
authority, in violation of the will of the nation. 
So in this case, any one of ordinary sense can at 
once see the plain and unmistakable duty of the 
Whig party, if they believed what they now say 
they did ; it was to withdraw the army, and refuse 
all appropriations for the prosecution of the war. 
The corporal's guard, who voted against the origi- 
nal recognition of war, and who have since opposed 
the granting of all supplies, are the only consistent 
persons to be found among the opposers of the 
war. Those who voted for it, and have since 
voted supplies, are forever estopped from saying 
one word against its inception. If the President 
was guilty of begiiming an unconstitutional and 
unnecessary war, they were guilty of helping 
him to prosecute it. The receiver of stolen goods 
is as bad as the thief. How is the distinction to 
be drawn between the President, who made this 
war, (as they say,) and the Whigs in Congress 
who voted him the men and money to carry it on? 
Honest and candid men will be able to find none. 

The gentleman from Tennessee (said Mr. H.) 
has told the House that he blushed for the course 
of the President in confining the appointments in 
the arrny almost exclusively to the Democratic 
party. He thought the gentleman would do well 
to reserve his blushes for his own party friends. 
How was it in Kentucky, where a Whig Governor 
had made sixteen Whig appointments in the army 
and not a single Democrat, wiiile the President 
had appointed a number of Whigs from that State — 
among them he remembered Major Berbridge and 
Captain Crittenden, (son of the Hon. John J. Crit- 
tenden,) Captain Turpin, and he knew not how 
many others. Could not the gentleman blush a 
little for his own partisan Governor, in view of 
these fiicts? He would allude also to North Caro- 
lina, where a Whig Governor, he believed, was 
guilty of the same thing. 

Mr. BOYDON said one Democrat had been 
appointed from that State. 

Mr. HENLEY remembered well that the ap- 
pointments there had been made over the earnest 
remonstrances of the soldiers themselves, who, 
being Democrats, were compelled to serve under 
Whig officers who had denounced the war as un- 
just. Had the gentleman fiom Tennessee any 
blushes for such conduct as this? Look again at 
Virginia : there, as he was informed, a Democratic 
Governor had appointed an equal number from 
each of the political parties to command the volun- 
teers from that State. 

Mr. PRESTON said the power of appointment 



in Virginia was vested in the Council, and not in 
the Governor. 

Mr. HENLEY. Was it a Democratic Coun- 
cil? 

Mr. PRESTON. It was. 

Mr. HENLEY. Very well ; that is what I 
want. It was Democratic, and did not proscribe 
the Whigs. Where are the blushes of the gentle- 
man from Tennsssee now? Mr. H. was not him- 
self opposed to the party in power choosing their 
own political friends for appointments to office, but 
he despised to hear the hypocritical cry of Federal 
orators against proscription, when in fact they 
were the most proscriptive party on earth. If the 
number of Whig appointments had been smaller 
than it was, he would have sustained it; in fact 
he would have been glad to have seen no Whig 
appointed who did not acknowledge the justice of 
the war. 

What ground was there, he would ask in all 
sincerity, for this charge of proscription ? Were 
not Scott and Wool both Whigs? And had they 
not been appointed by the President to take com- 
mands in the army ? There was General Cadwal- 
ader, of Pennsylvania; but he was a neutral ; and 
the gentleman said he had no confidence in neu- 
trals. General Taylor was also one of the Presi- 
dent's appointments; and he, too, was a neutral. 
The gentleman has no respect for such men, and 
yet he is for Taylor for President. Strange incon- 
sistency ! Mr. H. would remark, that the gentle- 
man's speech, with reference to the war, was a fair 
illustration of the views of the Whig party on that 
subject. He was for the war and against it; he 
was for more territory, and he was opposed to 
more territory; he was for indemnity, and he was 
opposed to indemnity: in short, he was for and 
against everything, and seemed to have no settled 
opinion of his own: and so it was with the whole 
party. He would read and place in juxtaposition 
some of the gentleman's sentiments, as he had ex- 
pressed them. Mr. Barrow says: 

" I am willing to give a lib- " If the President's design 
eralbounty; any amount that is to sulijiiiate and overrun — 
to swallow up or absorb — 
Mexico, I am utterly opposed 
to any such purpose." 



may be necessary to raise the 
army we have to that num- 
ber which General Scott says 
is sulTieient to overrun all 
Mexico." 

" General Scott says 50,000 
men are sufficient for the 
conquestof all Mexico." 

" I am willing to vote thirty 
new re!;iments instead of 
ten." 

" The President, with all 
this force at his disposal, 
wants 30,000 more." 

" I tt>.irn gentlemen, before 
they take the step they are 



" I am for raising our army 
to that number." 

" We have now 50,000 bay- 
onets in the field." 

'•I go for 30,000 more, if 
they are volunteers." [That 
will increase the army to 
70,000.] 

" J am willing to take such 
territory as may be deemed 
now abi)ut to take," [for the necessary for our purposes, 
acquisition of territory.] (hy treaty.") 

" It was the desire for new "And for that retribution 
territory that elected Mr. awaits him either in this 
Polk." world or in the world to 

come." 
The gentleman (said "Mr. H.) had consigned 
Mr. Polk to the regions of the damned for desiring 
more territory, while he had himself expressed a 
jierfect willingness to take as much territory as we 
wanted. Surely, Mr. Polk wanted no more. This 
reminded Mr. H. of the French liishop, who being 
also a prince, said, " as bishop, I may not shed 
man's blood; but as prince, I will lead my soldiers 
to battle." His servant, who did not comprehend 



this apparent inconsistency, inquired with great 
simplicity, " what would become of the bishop 
when Satan came for the prince ?" So he should be 
glad to inquire, what was to be the fate of Mr. 
Barrow when the devil shall go down into Ten- 
nessee after Mr. Polk for desiring more territory, 
he [Mr. B.] being equally guilty by his own confes- 
sion,.' 

The CHAIRMAN here reminded Mr. H. that it 
was not in order to mention the name of a member. 

Mr. HENLEY. I am not speaking, sir, of the 
member from Tennessee, but of Mr. Barrow, 
when he shall return home, and that great day of 
retribution shall have arrived of which he has so 
confidently spoken. 

The gentleman from Tennessee had told the 
House that the Whigs had placed it upon record, 
that this war was unconstitutional and unneces- 
sary ; that they had done this to condemn the 
President, and there let it remain to blister his name 
in all time. Mr. Clay (continued Mr. H.) had 
already blistered the Whig name by declaring, that 
on a former occasion they had " voted a lie." The 
country would say, that in this instance they had 
also voted a lie; and that would be a blister that 
would turn to a putrid sore upon the corrupt car- 
cass of Whigery, or he was much mistaken in 
the signs of the times. 

But he must proceed. He would next call the 
attention of the committee and of the country to 
the approaching canvass for the Presidency. Would 
General Taylor be the candidate of the Whig or 
Federal party, was a question often asked, and he 
proposed to submit a few remarks in relation to 
the probability, or rather he would say the im- 
probability, of such a result. They had heard much 
of the dangers to be apprehended from military 
chieftains. War, pestilence, and famine had been 
considered by this same Federal parly as prefera- 
ble in a republican Government to the election of a 
military chieftain to the Presidency. Would these 
same men take a general out of the army, and in 
time of war, without any civil qualificaiion what- 
ever, and who, indeed, professed utter ignorance 
upon all political subjects, and whose military re- 
nown was exclusively a harvest gathered in a war 
which they themselves believed was in violation 
of the Constitution and in derogation of right and 
justice.' Could they place such a man at the head 
of their ticket, and then have the impudence to go 
before the country and endeavor to persuade tlie 
people of the honesty and purity of their intentions 
and purposes? No; it could not be so. They had 
not yet lost all sense of shame; and until they had, 
they could not be guilty of such an absurdity. 
They might have a very poor appreciation of the 
intelligence of the people, but he imaginetl they 
could hardly have placed it at so low an ebb as to 
imagine them so easily gulled and humbugged as 
that. 

The running of General Taylor as the Whig 
candidate would be a very common military evolu- 
tion called changing front. The order for it would 
be. Attention ! Federalists, Whigs, Native Ameri- 
cans, Abolitionists, Slave-holders, Bank men, anti- 
Bank men, War men, anti-War men! Attention 
the whole ! Take position — left in front — right 
wing thrown back ! Form open column of com- 
panies — march ! Company No. 1, No -party men, 
Captain Bennett, editor New York Herald ; com- 
pany No. 2, Native Americans, no oflicers; com- 



pany No. 3, Bank men, Captain J. Watson Webb; 
company No. 4, anti-Bank men, in confusion; 
company No. 5, protective Tariff party, in mourn- 
ing; company No. 6, war Federalists, armed with 
cornstalks ; company No. 7, friends of Peace; com- 
pany No. 8, all who believe Santa Anna is the 
greatest general in the world; company No. 9, all 
who are opposed to the acquisition of territory ; 
company No. 10, those who are for as much ter- 
ritory as we want; company No. H, those who 
never thought their country right in any contest 
with a foreign nation; company No. 12, Southern 
fanatics, who go for Taylor because he is a slave- 
holder; company No. 13, Q,uakeis; company No. 
14, Whigs, in disorder; company No. 15, being 
the extreme left, old Federal party, bearing a ban- 
ner, with this inscription, " Where shall I go?''' 
This grand military cavalcade would be under the 
chief command of General John C. Calhoun, who 
is the only man who has advocated General Tay- 
lor's defensive line. It would march to the tune 
of " Hail Columbia !" in front; and " Hark ! from 
the tombs a doleful sound !" would be heard to 
issue from the rear. 

Mr. H. cited the conversation of three Whig 
editors, not long since, in this city. One of them said 
he would not support Geiieral Taylor, unless he 
would avow his political sentiments. Another said 
h« would not support him, unless he pledged him- 
self to oppose the acquisition of territory and the 
extension of slavery. The third said he would 
go for him anyhow — he would "go it 6/i?id." So 
he thoHght it would be with the Whig party; two- 
thirds of them would adhere to their principles, 
while there might be one-third who would go it 
blind, regardless of all principle. The editor of 
the New York Tribune, a conscientious and an 
able Whig leader, had avowed, positively, that he 
Vi'ould not support Taylor, unless he was run a.s 
a Whig, pledged as a Whig, and agreed to carry 
out Whig principles. So it would be v.'ith honest 
Whigs all over the country. They were not again 
to be caught in the " no-principles-for-the-public- 
eye'' trap. They remembered too well the time 
they went for Tyler " therefore, without a why or 
a wherefore," and they had sworn, in the bitter- 
ness of their disappointment, never- again to vote 
blindly for any man for this high ofhce. They 
were afraid of being again "Tylerized." 

Mr. H. next adverted to the fact, that General 
Taylor had been nominated by a committee in 
Alabama, upon the sole ground that he was a 
southern man, a slave-holder, and opposed to the 
Wdmot proviso. He knew that this had been 
done only by those who were as fanatical upon 
the one extreme of slavery as were the abolition- 
ists of the North upon the other ; while in the 
North, he knew that many Whigs had pledged 
themselves to vote for no man who was not in 
favor of the Wilmot proviso. 

The Whig party, .said Mr. H., will hold a con- 
vention. Three-fourths of the party are in favor 
of it. Will they, can they nominate General Tay- 
lor? He would read two extracts from letters 
written by the General, \Ahich would be conclu- 
sive on that point : 

"In no case can I permit myself to be tJie cnndidate of 
any party, or yield myself to party schemes." — Taylor's Let- 
ter to the Editor of the Cincinnati Signal, dated May 18, 1847. 

On the 29th of May, 1P47, he again said: 
" But I will not be the candidate of any party or clique." 



The AVhigs, said Mr. H., had determined to j 
mixke a party nomiiiation, and General Taylor had 
told them, in distinct and positive terms, that he 
would not be a party candidate. They had avow- 
ed their determination to take no man, whose po- j 
litical opinions were not known. General Taylor 
had told them that he would not declare his senti- j 
ments, for the very good reason that he had none 
to declare. He therefore concluded that General 
Taylor could not be the Whig candidate, unless 
they abandoned their party organization, held no 
convention, and agreed to run a no-party man; or 
that General Taylor should falsify his own decla- 
rations, and agree to take a party nomination, and 
pledge himself to party measures, which he has 
already said he will not do. The Whigs could 
not run General Taylor without falsifying their 
own position, or placing him in a situation to fal- 
sify hia. He did not believe it ever had been the 
intention of the Whig party to run General Tay- 
lor; they had only used him asastool-pigeun. The 
time was not far distant when they would cast him 
off, and we should hear no more of their pretended 
admiration of his character and worth. 

Of General Taylor, personally, he would not 
speak. Tliat he was an honest, brave, and high- 
minded man, and that he had done his country 
good service in this just war in which we are en- 
gaged, he did not doubt; but as to the battle of 
Buena Vista, no one man was entitled to the hon- 
ors of that memorable day; it was the boys that 
carried the knapsacks that fought that battle. It 
was the noble daring, the unparalleled bravery of 
the volunteers, that won that brilliant achieve- 
ment. 

The Whigs, said Mr. H., are united and deter- 
mined upon one thing; they know the general 
desire of the people of this country for peace; they 
know the innate love of justice which dwells in the 
hearts of the great mass of our people; they know 
that an unjust, an unnecessary, and an unconsti- 
tutional war, would be condemned, and its authors 
repudiated and rejected as unworthy of public con- 
fidence. They think they see, in the event of being 
able to fix this impression upon the public mind, 
some hope of the downfall of the Democratic party, 
and their own accession to power. They are de- 
termined to make the experiment. But they act 
without concert or arrangement. Their efforts are 
ridiculous, impotent, and silly. They agree in 
saying the President made the war; that is the 
burden of their song — the chorus of which is, " 'tis 
Polk's war;" and here they all chime in with the 
greatest harmony. But how is it Polk's war? One 
says it was caused by the annexation of Texas; 
another, that it was the result of sending a minister 
instead of a commissioner to Alexico, to settle our 
difficulties; a third, that it was produced by the 
march of our army to the Rio Grande; a fourth 
says, it was not the movement to the Rio Grande 
that caused the commencement of hostilities, but it 
was obviously occasioned by the neglect of the 
President to order a much larger number of troops 
there than he did; a fifth one, that it was caused 
l)y the ordering of a portion of your fleet into the 
Gulf to watch the movements of Mexico, and be 
ready for any emergency that might arise; a sixth 
swears that the President made it to distinguish 
his Administration and secure a reelection; while 
a seventh asserts that it is a war for the extension 
of slavery; and an eighth, that it is a Democratic 



war, waged for the acquisition of territory, and 
an extension of the "area of freedom." 

Thus do those gentlemen agree that it is the 
President's war, but differ as wide as the poles as 
to how the act was produced; and so it is, sir, 
with all those who attempt to prove a falsehood. 
Their position is similar to that of half a dozen 
persons conspiring to prove an individual guilty of 
murder: they agree upon the main point; all saw 
him kill the man, and this each one testifies to 
most positively; but they are sworn separately, 
and, upon the cross-examination, the first says, he 
shot him; the second, that he felled him with a 
club; the third, he stabbed him with a bowie knife; 
the fourth, he broke his skull with an axe; and so 
on. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, these witnesses have im- 
peached their own veracity, invalidated their own 
testimony, and would be hooted and hissed out of 
a court of justice. So it is with those who have 
volunteered' to swear that the President is the 
author of the war. They differ so widely, and 
their testimony is so contradictory, that the people 
are already growing indignant at their pitiful, 
contemptible and pettifogging attempts at prevari- 
cation and falsehood, regarding it as an insult to 
their intelligence, and an outrage upon truth, to 
offer to prove an assertion or sustain a position by 
testimony which would subject the same number 
of witnesses in a court of justice to an indictment 
for perjury. 

Mr. H. next proceeded to remark, that much had 
been said on the subject of treason. The Consti- 
tution defined it thus: " Treason against the United 
States shall consist only in levying war against 
them, orin adhering to their enemies, giving them 
aid and comfort." "The Federal party, during the 
war of 1812, were guilty of treason. He believed 
none of them had been caught in the overt act; 
none of them had been hung for treason, though 
many deserved it. The treason of the Federal 
party at that time consisted mainly in the denun- 
ciations of the war as unholy, unjust, and abomi- 
nable — as being the President's war; in asserting 
that it was unnecessary, and ought to have been 
avoided. This was not treason in the eye of the 
law, and ought not to have been; but it was treason 
in the judgment of the people; and those who 
were guilty of it were consigned to utter oblivion, 
amidst the hisses, the scoffs, and scorns of an in- 
dignant and outraged public sentiment. He asked 
no" other punishment for those who were playing 
the part of traitors now. He had full confidence 
in the patriotism and justice of the people. All he 
desii;ed was, to place' them upon trial before the 
same tribunal that had passed judgment upon the 
old Federal party, for opposing their own country 
in the late war; and for the part he had borne in 
sustaining this war, or in originating it, if you 
please, Mr. H. was ready for trial at the same 
enlightened tribunal. The grossest act of treason 
committed by the old Federal party was that of 
burning blue lights upon the bleak coasts of New 
England as signals to inform the enemy of the 
movement of our shipping. It had been often de- 
nied that this revolting crime had ever been com- 
mitted; and there were many honest people who 
did not believe that any American citizen could 
ever have been guilty of so diabolical a deed. That 
there might be no longer any dispute about it, he 
would introduce proof of the fact that no one could 



6 



dispute. He quoted from page 287, Military and 
Naval Letters, an extract of a letter from Commo- 
dore Stephen Decatur to the Secretary of the 
Navy, viz : 

"New London, December 20, 1813. 
"Some few nights since, the weather promised an oppor- 
tunity for this squadron to get to sea, and it was said on 
sliore tliat we intended to make the attempt. In the course 
of the evening, two blue lights were burnt on both the 
points at the harbor's mouth, as signals to the enemy; and 
there is not a doubt but that they have, by signals and other- 
wise, instantaneous information of our movements. Great 
hut unsuccessful exertions have been made to detect those 
who communicate with the enemy by signal. The editor of 
the New London Gazette, to alarm them, and in the liope 
to prevent tlierepetil ion of those signals, stated in that news- 
paper, that they had been observed, and ventured to de- 
nounce those who had made them in animated and indig- 
nant terms. The consequence is, that he has incurred the 
expresscensureof someof his neighbors. Notwithstanding 
these signals have been repeated, and have been seen by 
twenty persons at least in tliis squadron, there arc men in 
New London who affect to have the hardihood to disbelieve 
it, and the effrontery to avow tlieir disbelief. I have the 
honor to be, &c., STEPHEN DECATUR. 

" Hon. William Jones, Secretary of the A'atT/." 

This was a part of the treason of the Federal 
party in the last war. The treason of which the 
present Federal party was guilty, was not, so far 
as he knew, so flagrant and outrageous-as that to 
which he had just alluded. It was, however, of 
the same character, but criminal only in a less de- 
gree. The speeches made in this Hall to prove 
the enemy right, and our own country wrong, in 
the origin of this war, were blue lights burned here 
to inform the enemy that they had sympathizers 
in this Hall, ready to redress the wrongs we are 
now inflicting upon them, so soon as they shall 
have power. The vote here the other day, that 
the war was unnecessary and unconstitutional, was 
a blue light, to inform Mexico that the Whig [Fed- 
eral] party had tlie majority in one branch of the 
American Congress. The denunciations of the 
war by the Federal press, and their shouts of vic- 
tory over this Federal majority here, were so many 
bhe lights, as signals to the enemy, that their 
friends in the United States were gaining strength, 
and would shortly withdraw the army, and put an 
end to the war. The anti-war Federalists were 
called blue-light Federalists; he would therefore 
call the party which corresponded with it now, 
blue-light Whigs. It was saying to Mexico, We 
are fully sensible of the injustice our country is 
doing you; a majority of our people condemn it 
entirely; and if you but hold on a short time, we 
shall be in power, and we shall ask none of your 
territory, no indemnity for the expenses of the 
war, and no security for the future. Our army 
will be immediately withdrawn, and you can settle 
with us upon your own terms. This was what 
Mexico understood from the course of the Federal 
party; and how could she understand it in any 
other light. The Mexican people could not un- 
derstand the working of our Government. They 
knew that revolutions were of frequent occurrence 
at home, and they were daily expecting a revolution 
in favor of the Whig party on the war question, 
which would at once end the war in their favor. 
Hence, in his opinion, their extraordinary obsti- 
nacy in refusing to make peace. He did not hesi- 
tate to declare it to the world, as his firm belief, 
that if the Whig party had given their hearty con- 
currence to the war, and its vigorous prosecution, 
we should have had peace long since. Indeed, 
he doubted whether we ever should have had war, 



but for the declarations of the Whigs, that the 
annexation of Texas was unjust to Mexico, and 
just cause for war on her part against us. He was 
sure the prolongation of the war was produced by 
Whig policy at home. It had prevented peace up 
to this time, and would continue to prevent it, as 
long as Mexico had any hope of the Whig party 
getting into power here. He believed sincerely 
that the policy of the Whigs had produced incal- 
culable mischief in this country, and had led Mex- 
ico into a dilemma from which she could never 
recover. Gentlemen, said Mr. H., ask us in 
derision, When will this war terminate? and tell 
us that Mexico is conquered, and still we have no 
peace. He would answer that question. We 
would never have peace till we conquered this 
seditious party at home, and convinced Mexico 
that she coidd no longer look to this country for 
" aid and comfort." 

From the battle of Palo Alto up to this time, 
every one supposed we should have peace after 
each successive victory. General Taylor thought 
so at the capitulation of Monterey. General Scott 
thought so, when he paused, three days before 
the city of Mexico, with his brave army panting 
for victory, to give them a chance to save their 
capital from capture. In all this we had been 
doomed to disappointment. The war was still in 
existence. The Whigs were in a great degree re- 
sponsible for this state of things. Their policy 
had been productive of incalculable injury to this 
country, and must, if persevered in, result in the 
utter downfall and ruin of Mexico. The brilliant 
and unequalled victories of Palo Alto, of Mon- 
terey, of Buena Vista, of Vera Cruz, of Cerro 
Gordo, of Contreras, of Churubusco, of Chepul- 
tepec, of the city of Mexico, had followed each 
other in rapid succession , and still we had no peace. 
He had heard, that after the storming of Cerro 
Gordo, a large number of copies of the speech of 
Thomas Corwin against the war, was found in 
Santa Anna's trunk. Young Doniphan, a printer, 
who was taken prisoner on the Rio Grande, and sold 
to a Mexican editor in the south of Mexico, was 
asked, while engaged in the printing oflice " setting 
up" Corwin's speech, by the Governor of the de- 
partment, how long he thought it would be before 
Corwin would be President of the United States. 
The paper wrapper of a cartridge, a missile of 
death fired at us at Buena Vista, and picked up 
on the battle-field by one of his constituents, was 
a part of Webster's Philadelphia speech. His 
authority for this was Major Cravins, Captain 
Davis, and Lieutenant Shanks, of the Indiana vol- 
unteers. The paper was still in possession of one 
of these gentlemen. What effect did these things 
have upon our gallant army in Mexico.' Colonel 
Doniphan, of the Missouri volunteers, said it was 
chilling and freezing, and that no one could imagine 
his feelings, when, two thousand miles from home, 
in an enemy's country, and in a city numbering 
twenty times his own force, he received Corwin's 
speech, denouncing his gallant little band as little 
better than thieves and robbers. He asserted that 
the policy of those who pretended to be the friends 
of peace at home tended to prolong the v/ar eter- 
nally. Lieutenant Colonel Lane, a Whis: from 
Indiana, had uttered similar patriotic sentiments, 
pronouncing all who pursued such a course traitors 
at heart, whatever their professions might be. 
Colonel Morgan , of Ohio, in a speech at Columbus, 



said, " those who advocate the withholding sup- 

* plies, or withdrawing our army, disguise their 
' sentiments as they may, are traitors at heart. 
' The man who would not support his country 
' when engaged in a just war is a traitor, and lacks 
' the courage to give that ' aid and comfort' to the 
' enemy, the punisliment of which is death by the 
' hangman. This language was strong, but it was 

* true." Colonel Wynkoop, of Pennsylvania, had 
expressed similar opinions; the whole army enter- 
tained tiiem, and every patriotic heart in the nation 
beat in unison with these sentiments. 

An officer of high rank, who has just returned 
from Mexico, says he saw in the National Palace, 
in that city, more than four hundred extracts from 
Whig speeches and Whig newspapers, against the 
war, bound together in a book, and preserved in 
the public archives there, which had been furnished 
to the Mexican Secretary of State by some tory 
traitor in the United States. 

But he could not dwell longer upon this branch 
of the subject; he left it for the people in their 
retirement to pronounce such judgment as they 
deemed adequate to the offence against all such as 
would thus place themselves in a hostile attitude 
to their own country in time of war. The Whigs 
pretend to deprecate the subjugation of all of Mex- 
ico. Their policy is fast tending to that end, and it 
will shortly be inevitable, unless they change their 
course. Before the battles of the 8th and 9th of 
May, a settlement of all our difficulties would have 
been easy, without despoihng Mexico of a foot of 
her territory. After the battle of Monterey, she 
might have settled by ceding us only a port for 
commercial purposes on the Pacific. After the 
battle of Buena Vista and the fall of Vera Cruz, 
New Mexico and Upper California might have 
been added to our demands; but now, when the 
capital is in our possession, and the army is 
spreading itself over the whole country, we may 
well demand the line of the Sierra Madre from the 
Gulf to the parallel of 865° north latitude, and 
thence west to the Pacific; and should the obsti- 
nacy of Mexico, and the treason of Federalism, 
continue the war much longer, what alternative 
is there but the conquest and subjugation of all 
Mexico. He somewhat doubted if the fate of the 
Mexican Government was not even now inevitable. 
It was possible her nationality was already forever 
gone. If peace was not soon made, her fate was 
sealed. Each day was rendering this result more 
and more certain. Each day's delay here, in 
passing the army bill and granting supplies, and 
every Whig speech against the war, was signing 
the death knell of Mexican nationality. 

Our people had already overrun three-fourths of 
the country; they had breathed the pure refreshing 
atmosphere of the valley of Mexico, and had wit- 
nessed the extraordinary fertility of her lowlands. 
They had seen beautiful orange groves; her rich 
gold and silver mines had not escaped their notice. 
They had seen with what little labor all the wants 
of nature could be supplied. They had seen a 
semi-barbarous population, but little advanced be- 
yond the condition, and but little better qualified 
to enjoy the blessings of civilization than the 
North American Indians, who once held undis- 
puted sway in this proud land of ours. Give the 
Yankee once foothold in a country like this, and 
he doubted if you could either scare, coax, or 
drive him out. It was doubtful whether the recall- 



ing your army now would save her Government 
from annihilation. It was doubtful whether it 
was practicable now, and he was sure it would not 
be right, to restore Mexico to the condition in 
which we found her, without law, order, morality, 
virtue, or safety to life or property. 

The progress of the war and its consequences 
had already arrived at that point at which many of 
the citizens of Mexico themselves sincerely desired 
to be placed under our protection. They were 
now convinced that even our military rule was in- 
finitely preferable to their civil government, and 
they would deprecate nothing so much as the with- 
drawal of our army, and restoration of Mexican 
authority. If the war continued much longer, the 
whole of Mexico would fall into our hands ; and 
it would become our duty to keep it, to control it, 
to govern it, to extend the blessings of our free in- 
stitutions over it. Yes, he believed, if forced to 
this condition by her own obstinacy, or the treason- 
able designs of her pretended friends, that we could 
govern and control Mexico, and ultimately, with- 
out danger, incorporate her into our glorious (jnion , 
and present to the world an ocean-bound Republic; 
the dominions of the American eagle could safely 
be extended from the Canadas to the Pacific, and 
the stars and stripes float proudly on every breeze, 
from ocean to ocean. He was not advocating this; 
but if forced upon us, let it come. Liberty would 
be the gainer by it. It would throw the sheltering 
wing of our bird of liberty over a larger area; it 
would give happy homes and good laws to millions 
who do not now enjoy them. It would introduce 
into that benighted region, the schoolmaster, the 
minister of the gospel, and a free press. Wherever 
they went, he was sure prosperity and happiness 
would be found. He meant no reflection upon the 
established religion of that country; but in four hun- 
dred years it had failed to accomplish much for the 
original inhabitants, and he was willing to seethe 
Protestant, whose labors had been so successful, 
and who had done so much for the happiness of 
mankind, placed side by side, with the Catholic of 
Mexico, and let them vie with each other in ameli- 
orating the condition of those people. He did 
not, therefore, look upon even the conquest of all 
Mexico with half the alarm which seemed to be 
frightening the imaginations of some gentlemen. 

But his remarks had already been extended be- 
yond the limits he had prescribed for them in the 
beginning. He would conclude by reading an ex- 
tract from the Olive Branch, by Mathew Gary, 
addressed to the Federal party in 1814, as pre- 
cisely applicable to the Federal party of the prea- 
ent day: " Your party rises as your coontry 
sinks; it sinks as your country rises. '^ 

This is an awful fact. It cannot fail to rend 
the heart of every pubhc-spirited man among you. 
For the love of God and of peace, by the shade 0£ 
Washington, by that country that contains all you 
hold dear, I adjure you to weigh well this sentence: 
You SINK AS YOUR COUNTRY RISES. Yes, it is in- 
disputably so. It is a terrific and appalling truth. 
Jind you rise as that desponding, lacerated, perishing, 
betrayed country sinks. " I would rather be a dog, 
and bay the moon, than stand in this odious pre- 
dicament." 

How was it (said Mr. H.) with the present Fed- 
eral or Whig party.? Had they ever prospered as 
a party except when the interests of the people 
languished .' They came into power in 1840 amidst 



8 



panic, distress, and pecuniary embarrassment. 
They were now raising the hue-and-cry of panic, 
of prostrated credit, and of ruin, and had no hope 
of reaching the goal of their ambition except upon 
the ruins of the character, the prosperity, and the 
honor of their country. Mathew Gary said he 
would " ratlier be a dog, and bay the moon, than 
belong to such a party." 

He would leave it to the people to determine 
how far the conduct of the modern Whigs was 
identical with that of the old Federalists, and to 
pronounce judgment accordingly. They had pro- 
nounced a rigiiteous judgment against that party 
that opposed the late war, and he did not doubt 
they would deal with equal justice towards mod- 
ern Whigery, Federalism, and all its allies. 
i(-. If what he had said seemed to be harsh, he 
would remark, that it had no application to those 



honest and patriotic Whigs who stood by their 
country in this war, (of whom he was proud to say 
there were many,) but was intended solely to apply 
to those who had taken the side of Mexico, and 
endeavored to slander and disgrace the American 
name, and embarrass, weaken, and cripple the 
Government in its war measures. To those his 
remarks were intended to apply. He regretted 
that their conduct had justified what he had said. 
But believing all he had said to be just and true, 
he had no apology to make. It was a time when 
plain talk was demanded by the occasion. He 
had spoken plainly. He was ready to abide by 
the result. If his accusations against the Mexican 
party in this. country were not well founded, let 
the people condemn him and not them. Harsh, 
harsh justice was all that he demanded, and by 
her stern decrees he was ready to abide. 



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